SBC Committee Decides against Expelling Members of Pro-Gay Baptist Alliance

“Executive Committee members decided against banning all churches that are members of the Alliance from also being members of the SBCStory

Discussion

This is just one more reason I don’t fellowship with Southern Baptists. The “resurgence” is still not complete.

John Uit de Flesch

But the Executive Committee members decided against banning all churches that are members of the Alliance from also being members of the SBC, according to the Associated Baptist Press. Instead, it decided that each church’s qualification should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

The SBC Executive Committee’s recommendation will be a formal motion at the annual SBC meeting in Phoenix, Ariz., June 14-15.
It will be interesting to see if the convention will accept this motion from the Executive Committee.

My guess (and I’m not a prophet nor the son of a prophet) is that the motion will be rejected.

A commenter to the article wrote:
[believer]
Here is normal SBC policy for dealing with matters like this. It begins at the Association level when a member church is reported for an issue such as this. The Association has a Credentials Committee that will investigate and report back the the Executive Committee of the Association who in turn can choose to bring a vote of disfellowship before the entire Association if indeed it is found out the charges against the member church are valid and worthy of having other churches disfellowship from this church. And basically the same process would take place at the State Convention and then the National Convention level as happened with the church in Fort Worth this past year or so. And it can also happen with an Association if they choose to ignore a valid violation by a member church or churches in their association. The Executive Board simply decided to allow this process to take it’s course in this matter rather than violate the autonomy of the local church or local Associaton.

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Got the impression this committee was a decision making body. Apparently it only recommends. So we’ve adjusted the headline to reflect that.

About downward spirals… it’s hard sometimes to tell if you’re seeing leftovers from a less conservative past or the beginning of a new sequence of errors. Not prepared to make that call, myself.
And I hear that what this is really about is whether dual membership in itself can be a reason for expulsion.

Were I voter there, I’d say yes, that should be an option. What if an SBC church decides to also join the Association of Baptists Who Hate the Bible (fictional) or something? How far can you go with “Well, it’s not our business what other bodies they join in addition to ours”? They definitely need the freedom to oust churches that join incompatible groups.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

SBCnet, which is an official SBC site, I believe, describes the Executive Committee http://www.sbc.net/aboutus/legal/sbcec.asp] here .

As I understand it, the Executive Committee is charged with running the day-to-day affairs of the convention ‘between conventions’, i.e., between the annual SB Convention which meets in the summer.

The current president of the Executive Committee is Frank Page, a fairly recent President of the SBC. I would take it that he would generally be considered to be a conservative.

All of this to say, there are still huge problems with the SBC as a whole. I am not optimistic that the conservative resurgence will be able to ultimately sustain itself. In my opinion, fundamentalists should be encouraging conservatives to leave the SBC, not the other way around.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I want to start by saying I in no way defend this decision.

I looked up the SBC position on homosexuality and it reads:
http://www.sbc.net/aboutus/pssexuality.asp

From what I know about SBC (I am not SBC), decisions are not made by executive fiat. The convention is rule like a business with committees and voting.

It is worth noting that the SBC did not make any decision on this. I would expect this to come up at the next SBC meeting though.

The committees simply make recommendations that are then voted on at the next meeting. If someone knows different then I will stand corrected.

Again, I am against what this decision is about.

1 Kings 8:60 - so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other.